Suze from
Straight on the Ground did an awesome Back in my Day post. Everyone loved it because who doesn't like to think about what shit used to be like? So Steph @
Steph's Space and I joined Suze to co-host a linkup and here we are talking about how it was back in our days.
To give you a frame of reference age-wise, I was born in 1977 and turned 37 in March. I'm totally a child of the 80s and did my high school and college stints in the 90s.
Back in my Day...
You could sit this close to New Kids on the Block in concert because nobody knew who they were.
There were no cell phones. I got my first cell phone when I was a sophomore in college in 1996. So when you were out, people just couldn't reach you. When we were in high school or college, it meant setting up meeting times or just driving around/walking around to various meeting spots and parties and running into people. It was pretty awesome. I always had change for the pay phone.
We used to slide around in the backseat of Gamma & Pop's car, the triplets and me. No seatbelts, no car seats, no problem! Standing up was frowned upon though.
We used to go see Steve Miller Band in the summer and who was driving was always a big thing.
There was no caller ID. We used to prank call people all the time, and that would be our activity for the night. It provided endless amusement.
There was no social media of any kind. Up until college the internet was still something no one was really using.
We went to the library to study because we had no computers. We needed books and reference materials and the dreaded microfiche.
We took photos and didn't know how they'd come out until we got the film developed. I have a lot of pics that look like this.
When you wanted to share music with your friends, you dubbed a mix tape. To make the original tape, you sat around listening to the radio and hit pause/record. When a song you liked came on, you scurried over and unpaused it. SCORE when you caught it from the beginning.
School shootings were not a thing. Stink bombs were things. Schools were safe places that sometimes stunk.
We thought orange was a good hair color...or I did, anyway.
The weekend morning cartoons were awesome: Monchichis, Superfriends, Scooby Doo, Popeye, Bugs Bunny/Road Runner, Speed Buggy, Smurfs, Get Along Gang, Muppet Babies, Cartoon Express on USA (Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, G.I. Joe, Captain Caveman, The Great Grape Ape, Jabberjaw). Pee Wee's Play House, The Glorious Ladies of Wrestling, and the WWF all ruled too.
The Berlin Wall was up until I was 12. We did duck and cover drills in elementary school where we'd get under our desks and also sit out in the hallways away from the windows. As if the drill would save us from a nuke the Russians may send our way.
If you weren't the winner, you didn't get a trophy. Period.
I ordered books from Scholastic Book Clubs. Pizza Hut's Book It program launched in the early 80s and that meant I got a lot of free personal pan pizzas. I remember the assembly where they announced the program. I was elated in the way that only book dorks can be. And oh, the books. I read The Little House books, The Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Christopher Pike, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley High, choose your own adventures, Babysitter's Club, VC Andrews (whoops)...
The posters on my wall were of Richard Grieco and Jon Bon Jovi. In my basement, my friends and I ripped pages out of Teen Beat and Bop and glued photos of dreamy stars to the concrete block walls. My dad was not pleased with that when it came time to sell that house.
I tight rolled my pants, wore scrunchies and banana clips, collected Swatch watches and colored high top Reeboks, and had big bangs. In high school, I loved flannel and all the jeans were high waisted. There was no choice.
My room was a mess. And I photographed it with a Polaroid camera. I wish I never threw that out. Thank God I got neat.
We wrote notes. I didn't get my first email address until I was a freshman in college, and even then we didn't use email for everything. In college, we sent letters and cards.
I made lists for everything. Wait, I still do that.
When we got our licenses, we got beaters or hand me down cars and drove them with pride, patting them lovingly and praying they worked. A negligible percentage of kids drove newer cars. A beater first car was a must.
We carried our college student IDs in these...and our student IDs had our social security number printed right on them.
MFD was homecoming king the year we graduated high school. This makes me laugh because people who didn't go to school with us are always like
seriously? Yes, seriously. (Hi Nancy!)
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Haikuesday
Ugly then and now:
Many eighties styles are back
Stop with the peg pants.
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Link up here, and click around to see what it was like back in someone else's day.
